red light, green light
by shannanagin
Summary: Post-Blanket Fort Collapse 2010


**XOXO**

The blankets fall, a single sheet drifting over them in pink-hued dome of seclusion. Annie's eyes drop immediately, instinctively to his lips as she dips closer and exhales sharply.

Shouts of distress and chaos echo around them but Jeff's eyes are on her, dark and close and unreadable. He doesn't pull away and Annie's in the middle of telling herself not to analyze it, to sit up and laugh it off as just another in a long line of warm, foggy-brain inducing Jeff moments, when he starts to smile lazily.

Annie flushes and ducks her chin down. A moment later she feels his lips at the crown of her head, in her hair. He breathes in deep through his nose and she squeezes her eyes shut, one hand sliding up to clutch at his shoulder.

They hold there, still and quiet, pressed together until Jeff pulls away slowly. He blinks at her and for a second she thinks he's going to kiss her. _Wants_ him to kiss her. Wants to lean forward the last few inches and kiss _him_. But she's done that before and now it's his turn. _He_ needs to make the decision.

When she feels his hand on hers, thumb brushing against her knuckles, her eyes start to drift closed.

"C'mon." he whispers and starts crawling toward the edge of the blanket.

Annie stares for a second, trying to press back a wave of disappointment but she follows and lets him pull her up and out of the debris of the collapsed fort. Their eyes meet one last time and the reassurance (mixed with something that looks remarkably like sadness) she sees there makes her entire body seem to sigh with relief. His fingers tighten against hers, almost imperceptibly, before releasing.

Britta and Shirley are trying to untangle Pierce from a length of twinkly lights that have inexplicably wound around his casts.

"Stop struggling!" Britta barks at him.

Jeff raises an eyebrow at Abed and Troy as they round the corner.

"Destroying what you helped to create? How very hipster of you."

"Are you making fun of me?" Pierce yells. Britta levels him with a glare he shuts up quickly.

Abed shrugs, "It would have eventually become a monster. A cheap imitation of its original intent."

"Like Metallica," Britta mutters.

"Exactly."

Annie stands there, feeling weirdly disjointed. She doesn't want to be here under the watchful eyes of their friends, listening to Pierce and Britta throw heated barbs at each other while Shirley cooingly tries to appease them both. She wants to be back under that sheet with Jeff. Or back in the library scheming with him in hushed, laughing tones. She doesn't want to share this day with anyone else.

It's with a slight surge of annoyance that she bends down to help with Pierce, tugging a little too hard on the lights so that he yelps in over-dramatized pain.

"Oh grow up," she and Britta both snap at him in unison

Annie can feel Jeff's eyes on the back of her head the entire time.

**XOXO**

It takes the combined efforts of all of them to maneuver Pierce back into Shirley's van. He whines the entire time until Britta throws her hands up and stalks away, glowering and muttering under her breath. Everyone else threatens to leave him stranded in the parking lot if he doesn't behave.

Abed and Troy run off as soon as he's situated, whispering excitedly about periscopes and torpedoes; no one bothers to question why.

With a final shake of her head Shirley gets into the driver's seat. "The Lord is testing my patience," she mutters.

As the taillights of the van recede into the darkness of the night, Annie and Jeff stand silently side-by-side on the sidewalk. He's got his hands shoved in his pockets as he rocks back and forth on his heels. She looks up at him, questioningly, and he tilts his head toward where his car is parked in a handicapped spot.

Annie bites back a lecture on the ethical and legal implications of his blasé disregard for the rules, and follows him.

They slide into their seats, enveloped by a suffocating silence as the car doors slam shut.

His hands grip the steering wheel tightly. "I should take you home," he says finally. It's more a question than a statement.

Annie stares at the dashboard, heart racing. She wants to say no. She wants him to not even ask. She wants, she wants, she wants…

Her voice trembles only slightly as she breathes out a quiet, "Yeah."

Jeff nods and throws the car into drive without another word.

As he pulls out onto the street Annie watches him from the corner of her eye and allows herself, for the first time, to sink into the memories of the day. The way he felt hovering above her in the library, breathing irregularly with more than the exertion of tackling her to the ground. The almost gleeful smile that played across his features as they, together, plotted revenge against the Dean. The regret that flickered in his eyes when she went off-script and brought up the fallout of the summer.

These are things she knows now she's not imagining or exaggerating in her mind and it's becoming so exhausting to keep pretending otherwise.

The streets are quiet in the late hour and they're the only car at the intersection when Jeff glides to a stop at a red light.

He turns toward her, "Annie," he starts.

"I had fun today Jeff," she blurts out in a rush, interrupting him.

The corners of his mouth twitch in amusement. "Me too."

"Good." She nods firmly. As if that decides it.

"Good," he repeats, his voice soft and low.

They smile at each other for a long stretched out moment until he reaches up and curls his hand against her cheek, then down around the back of her neck, tugging her in closer. Annie's eyes drift closed and she feels his breath ghost against her before their lips touch and he's kissing her firmly, finally.

She leans further into him over the center console, her hand coming to rest on his thigh and Jeff makes a noise in the back of his throat, grips her tighter, fingers tangling into her hair. Her mouth opens and his tongue slides past her teeth.

The stoplight above them changes to green. Then back to red. Twice.

Annie's clutching the front of his shirt, her head titled back as Jeff's lips skim over her jaw and throat. His hand drops to her hip, tightening, as he tries to shift her closer into a more comfortable position, almost completely out of her seat. She's pulling herself up against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders when suddenly Jeff's foot slips off the brake and the car lurches forward.

Startled, they pull away from each other and Jeff slams his foot back down on the pedal, the car jerking to a stop. Annie drops back into her seat and giggles nervously. Her hearts skitters around unsteadily under her rib cage as she touches her fingers to her lips. They burn slightly from the scrape of his stubble.

The car is warm, echoing with the sounds of their breathing.

"I don't want to go home," Annie says quietly without really thinking.

Jeff closes his eyes. His hands are gripping the steering wheel again. "Annie."

"I mean, we don't have to… We don't have to go back to your place or anything. I'm not expecting... I just want..." She bites her lip. "I don't want to go home yet."

_Please._

He stares straight ahead. She watches the way his Adam's apple moves up and down as he swallows. When he turns toward her his eyes are soft.

"Okay."

The light turns green.


End file.
